The Cassandra's Dilemma: Book Two
by Gentleman Bystander
Summary: How does an oracle make sense of the visions and foreknoweldge they have received?  What does the seer do when the message they have been tasked to relay is far more complex than they ever could understand?  Thus is life for Uriah Shepard.
1. Prologue

**Legal Disclaimer**

Mass Effect and all characters, creations, organization, and locations pertaining there-to are the exclusive property of Bioware and EA Games. Use of said characters, creations, organizations, and locations fall under the aegis of the Fair Use Clause and are neither intended nor unintentional generating profit or revenue for the Author.

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><p><strong>Author Disclaimer<strong>

The Following Story is rated M for a reason. The story contains contextual and thematic elements that may not be suitable to all audiences. This book is set in a science fiction universe but covers matters of human interactions and relationships that may not be acceptable to all readers. Language and graphic descriptions of violence are common and if this type of writing disturbs you or is unsuitable for viewing by you or your child(ren)/spouse(s)/dependent(s), please do not open this work. This work is replete with refrences and allusions to romantic relationship and human sexuality as part of the natural process of human socialization and may contain strong sexual content and descriptions there-of. Refrences to suicide, drug use, alcoholism, religion, and politics are also contained here-in. If any of these subject matters are offensive or inappropriate to either yourself or your child(ren)/spouse(s)/dependent(s) please do not view my work as I will not be held responsible for posting material you may view as inappropriate after you elected to open and read it.

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><p><strong>Setting Disclaimer<strong>

Same setting as The Cassandra's Dilemma: Book One.

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><p><strong>Viewing Disclaimer<strong>

This is the last one...I promise. This work is best viewed at 1/2 justification. You know, those goofy little links at the top right corner of the page opposite the genre/title link bar. Seriously...I mean it, this definetly reads better at 1/2, but don't let me force you.

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><p><strong>Prologue<strong>

Something about the big house her daddy had built in Sester Holler seemed like home. It wasn't the home she had grown up in, but it seemed like the place she should have been raised. From her first glance at it 32 years ago when she brought her husband-to-be home to meet her parents to the time she had dropped their son off 18 years go so she and John could actually have a real honey moon, it had always said to her, "this is the home of the Carters." Clay County was far to rural for her taste, as was life in the Hollers that had seemed to be at a standstill, except for the migration of some technology from the outside world, for three hundred years. It had only taken about 45 minutes to fly down from Lexington, and as the rented X3M soared over the trees in the hill country, towards their almost palatial log-style house, she couldn't exactly discern what Uriah had loved so much about it or, for that matter, why it felt so much like home despite her worshipful love of cosmopolitan urban settings. Setting the craft down on the long concrete driveway she looked up to the sprawling 2 story house, the rustic look of logs offsetting the massive windows that gazed out on the holler. It was a strange melding of the traditional and the new, it was her father's house to a T. Everything was pristine and perfect, from the short cut impossibly green grass, the pine mixed with white ash and tulip poplars. Brisk early spring breeze rolling from over the hills down into the hollers then up again over the next hill set the leaves to whispering in the early mid morning air. She felt a strange sadness, wishing John was with her, to hold her hand as we walked up the drive way and past the old truck that daddy kept, onto the wide front porch and to the old fashioned hinged door. She had known daddy was pleased with her choice of husband even if he had some rather choice words about pacific north west intellectuals. John K. Shepard had been cut from a different cloth than his parents, parents he had only spoken to three or four times after taking his oath of enlistment and gaining his commission. She remembered the way momma had smiled in her soft way, told her she had a good man. Remembered the tears in both of their eyes when they first laid eyes on her and John's son those years back. Remembered what they had said and how they had tried to comfort her when John died over Elysium.

After he had died there had been other men, some dating, a fling or two, but she never loved another man and no relationship she had formed there-after had amounted to anything except a distraction. Perhaps her inability to move on was guilt at never telling their son that the last words they had shared had been when Uriah told his father to drop all his ordnance east of his smoke, danger close. It was strange that life had put them together in such strange circumstances, taking them away from each other without ever giving them the opportunity to be a real father and son. She found herself wishing that they had produced more children in those years they were married, maybe then she wouldn't feel so hollow about what she had done to Uriah weeks before. She hadn't even been able to see him after they took him into custody and she was sure he was dying inside, and why wouldn't he be? She had begun to feel like Judas Iscariot, betraying her boy to bureaucrats and petty politics, forcing him to send away the woman he loved, the woman who would be mother to his child. Perhaps she had come here to seek forgiveness from the only people she still could; her own parents.

Before she had even reached the five wide steps up to the front porch from the sloping driveway, the door opened, framing the tall form of her father. Stepping onto the porch he looked at his daughter, expression unchanging, his sun tanned skin contrasting sharply with the light grey of his short hair. The elder Carter stood still, slowly spreading his arms for the embrace he knew his daughter would want to give and receive. Climbing the steps she reached the family patriarch, still as tall as she remembered, and with the same at-once kind and harsh steely blue eyes. Not a word was spoken as they were unneeded, they embraced as father and daughter are wont after a long separation. For a moment she savored the smell of Old Spice aftershave, the subtly nutty earthen smell of pipe tobacco, and his home-made whiskey. Just like she remembered, though the whiskey was a newer addition for so early in the day, but this was, perhaps, a perk of retirement and having spent so many years working so hard to provide for the large family he had created. The old thick cotton of his shirt felt reassuring against her hands and chin, it reminded her of the feeling of safety she had always experienced as a girl being around her father.

"Welcome home, girl." He whispered in his gravelly twang.

"Hi, daddy."

The Carter patriarch stepped back, keeping one hand clasped on her shoulder, his left arm still around her and shouted back into the house, "Momma Carter...!" He had always called his wife that in front of their children, long after they had grown, it was tradition they had established over 50 years ago now, and they fell back into the practice with ease.

"What is it Willy?" Netta Carter's voice echoed from within.

"Your lil' girl is here, Momma Carter."

It only took seconds for her mother to emerge from the house, she still wore those same old style sun dresses she remembered as a little girl. She had somehow imagined herself growing up and wearing dresses just like the ones her mother had worn, the reality was that she didn't even remember the last time she had worn a dress, or a skirt for that matter. She was relatively sure she had on her honeymoon, but she wasn't even positive in that regard. The elder woman cupped her daughter's face in her hands, giving her a kiss on the cheek. She was definitely her mother's daughter, the familial resemblance was immediately evident to anyone who saw the two. By contrast she almost didn't resemble her father in any capacity, the difference in skin color was of course the most obvious, but her features leaned heavily to the African ancestry. She couldn't help but thing again how strong the resemblance was between Uriah and her father. She could see a bit of John in Uriah too, but in a lot of ways her son looked the way she had remembered her father looking when he was still in his 30s. The biggest difference was, of course, build, with Uriah being much more powerfully built than his grandfather, and the fact that her father had always had a lighter shade of blonde hair.

"Sorry I just dropped by unannounced, Momma."

"Nonsense! This is your home too Hannah-Mae."

She had to remind herself they had always been children of the Hollers. They may have met in Lexington while her mother was attending college and her father was starting his business, but they never let go of their country roots. It had a strange charm, serving to remind her of where she came from at times when she felt like she was in danger of becoming too pretentious. Still, she wasn't here entirely for the sake of nostalgia; she had to talk to someone she trusted implicitly about Uriah, her parents were the only ones left since John had died. She knew no matter what they wouldn't lie to her or tell her what she wanted to hear, they would be totally honest as they always had been. The family patriarch led them over to the wooden deck table and chairs sitting on the porch.

Netta Carter, without prompting, had retreated back into the house, emerging with three mugs and a jar of apple-pie shine. William Carter had been inheritor of the ancient Carter tradition of moon shining, and was nearly as proficient as a mash master as he had been as a businessman. For years one of his hallmarks in opening and closing a deal was to brink the prospective customers a jar of his signature apple-pie whiskey. He never crafted large batches, a few dozen gallons per run and he took great pride in ensuring he produced a product he would want to share with his friends and the extended family he had created by marrying into the huge Smith clan. It had been on a day much like this, sixty one years ago that her father had approached her mother's parents to ask for their permission to marry her. A young white man walking into a Holler in Casey County that had been primarily black of nearly 200 years, the politics of race having never fully abated in those time-forgotten places in the hills and woods of Kentucky, he had seemed more than a little out of place. The jar of shine he brought that day still remained in the home of the Smith clan, as a sign of the covenant born that day and solidified with the birth of William and Netta's five children.

"Daddy, momma, I have to talk to y'all about Uriah." She forced the words out past the binding apprehension in her throat that had threatened to choke and suffocate the words before they had left her mouth.

"So all this business on the news...it's really your boy?" Her father queried.

She nodded, squeezing her eyes shut. "I met saw him daddy, not but about five days ago. Turned my own boy in, sold him out."

"Hannah, sweetie, if he has done something wrong-" Her mother didn't even get to finish.

"He hasn't done anything wrong! I'm sorry, it's just that..." She let out an exasperated sigh. When she had confronted Hackett after they had picked Uriah up and took him in, she had been dangerously close to insubordination, a fact she was well aware of at the time. Hackett, to his credit, was patient and didn't reprimand her at all; indeed he was contrite about what he had forced her to do and had taken the additional step of showing her everything he could about what Uriah had discovered. She still had a hard time grasping it or even believing what her son was claiming, but Hackett seemed to believe her son's warnings of the Reapers were absolute fact with almost religious zeal. "Uriah found out some things that nobody wants to believe, nobody wants to accept as true, but the evidence... Let's just say there are some very powerful people who put complete faith in him, but with the things he has done...has had to do...it's not something that can just be ignored."

"Do you believe him?" The elder Mr. Carter inquired of his daughter.

"I dunno daddy, I mean...it all seems hard to believe, but he believes in it so much and he has so much information that backs up his conclusions. It's just still something I can't wrap my mind around."

"Then all you can do is believe in him, sweetie." Her mother's words were almost tritely simple. It wasn't as simple as that, not something that could be rendered into such simple terms as belief or disbelief. He was predicting the end of the world...Armageddon, an apocalypse of previously un-considered scale.

"I guess you're right."

"Course we're right, sweetie, that's what parents are there for." Netta replied, a small teasing smile on her face.

"What he did in Bahak though...a third of a million Batarians died when that relay went up."

"And you know for a fact he's going to carry that with him the rest of his days." Her father's words, once again, trying to assuage the confusion and feelings of guilt. "We don't know what he's seen, what's happened to him, and why...but I know he's a good boy. I could tell that from the first time I looked in his eye. You and John did good, Hannah, you have a fine young man. I don't think there has ever been on with a better heart, more honor, and braver than your boy. You just have to believe that he wouldn't do anything that his heart told him was wrong. Just believe that, girl."

He pat her hand reassuringly, then turned back to look up at his wife. As proud as they were of their five children, they had always had a special pride in Hannah. She had always struck out on her own path, done her own thing, proud and independent in a way that was even more pronounced among a family that had been born of proud independence.

Hannah took a deep calming breath, shifting her mind away from the conflicted emotions of her perceived betrayal. "Well, y'all better be ready for another great-grandbaby."

Her father lifted a brow, "Is that right now?"

"Momma, Daddy...you're not going to believe who the momma is going to be."


	2. Chapter 1

Cool breeze rolling in off the water teased sweat drenched hair cooling his scalp and causing prickles of goose bumps on his bare arms, reminding him ever so slightly of the evening winds he had enjoyed on Palaven some six weeks before. The nature of the work-out was different this night, as the subtle brininess of Pacific waters wafting into his nose did manage, just barely, to supplant the memory of that evening, but even so, as he continued to battle the pull-up bar through a series of exercises his mind was elsewhere. The Pacific was so much more pleasant, to his memory, than the Atlantic which he only remembered as dark water and cold days as he completed his amphibious training off North Carolina in the dead of winter. It was an angry sea, seeking to steal away the warmth of those that challenged it and send them to its bottom to be a portion unto crabs and other impersonal bottom feeders. Vancouver in spring was a paradise compared to the Camp Lejeune, Stone Bay, Onslow Bay and the New River in the harsh winter. Still, this subjective paradise was still, in effect, his prison. The bitterness of the return to realization chewed at him, forcing him to take his aggression out on the pull-up bar, the repetition of the exercise growing faster, the technique slacking as he allowed anger to take hold. At least at Lejeune he had been a free man, challenging himself to improve his craft, to walk the warrior's path and emerge from that cold grey water more of a man than he was before. Despite his displaced rage at the metal construction which became the proxy for the real source of his frustration, it was the muscles in his thighs, calves, and abdomen that were suffering the real punishment as he increased the speed of his suspended sit-ups. Administrative suspension, what the hell did that even mean? He supposed being declared MIA then being confirmed dead kind of set the UCMJ on its ear when it came to what you were supposed to do with a resurrected soldier. He reflected, almost blasphemously, that Jesus had been fortunate he wasn't a soldier, otherwise command might have put him on "administrative suspension" too.

Bars and cells would have been better than his current lodging, at least then he would have felt like he was being punished for something, being held accountable. As it was, Alliance Command had approached his suspension as equal components pedantic marginalization and condescending dismissal. They hadn't even had the decency to call him crazy and write-off his findings. Indeed they had wanted to learn everything they could in the first spate of debriefings; more about the collectors, more about the events surrounding the battle of the citadel, more about the Reapers, but rather than allow him to continue exploring preparatory methods for dealing with the imminent threat they had forced him out of the loop and into a new life that was a sedentary as it was without recourse. The paradigm they had adopted in treatment of his claims was paradoxical; almost as if they would respond to every assertion he made as "the most ridiculous thing they had ever heard" and immediately self-contradicted with a "tell me more". The vicissitudes of command policy had been replaced with a monotonous languor where in his status remained in a limbo of bureaucratic double-speak that left him without one hint of what to expect regarding his status. One week so far of nothing, all he did was work out, and sleep, and work out, and eat, and work out, and attend more debriefings. He read during the moments in between, he reviewed the information they had allowed him to have access to and, mostly, he chafed under the fact that while he wasn't being called a "prisoner" they had an entire 42 man platoon assigned as "security" for him. He wasn't entirely sure whether their purpose was to protect him from extant threats or whether they were protecting the extant threats from him. Even now a seven man section was watching over the enclosed PT yard, not seeming quite so strange in their Alliance Duty Uniforms except for the fact that they were all armed and he was the only one exercising. It still wasn't clear if the weapons were there to protect him, or to prevent him from escaping over the 20 foot wall that encircled the yard deep in the regional headquarters complex.

As if escape actually was an option at this point. There was no infrastructure he could count on, no ships available in which to make a run for the relay, no crew assembled that would obey his orders, no team to provide operational support. He found himself wondering what had happened to Joker and Dr. Chakwas. Where had Donnelly and Daniels been shipped off too? What about Ms. Chambers, Miranda and Jacob? Probably more than any other member of the crew he found himself worried about what had become of Jack, she, out of all of them, had the fewest socially redeeming skills and there was a strong likelihood that she would end up down the same horrible path she had followed prior to their meeting. He had recommended she look at finding a position in the Ascension Project, he had even gone as far as to write a recommendation to Hackett so he could grease the wheels for her. But it was impossible to say as to what decision she had made. Then of course there was Samara. His Samara, something that he never would have believed he would have been able to say when he realized he was first in love with her. He had come to accept the idea that the only intimacy he would ever share with her would be sitting on the floor of Starboard Observation, discussing things that he could never speak about to the rest of the crew. As child-like and vulnerable as he felt when near her, she made him feel mature after their talks. The perfect simpatico of ethics, belief, and convictions was almost worth the potential hurt of rejection. He never forced the issue during the tumultuous days leading to the attack on the Reaper base, as much as he wanted to experience her just once, to taste the lips if only for a second before going on what was almost certainly to be a fiery death worthy of a Viking Saga.

Oh, how his worst hope/best fear scenario had been wrong, in her he found a passion he didn't even know he possessed and, he felt, no, hoped, she might have found an equally strong passion in him. Everything about her filled his mind when he wasn't actively focusing on his personal training or strategizing. Sleeping alone had been so hard after the month of going to sleep with her next to him after the incident with Prometheus. Once again his almost pubescent understanding of love and relationships had him in a pit of self-doubt that bordered on despair. Would she even remember him in a few months, what about years from now? He knew he would never forget her, but just how lopsided had the relationship truly been? He didn't feel it was possible that she had loved him as much as he loved her. That selfish bit of doubt gnawed at him more than the genuine concern of what perils may have fallen the rest of the crew, and he hated himself a little for it. His own desire for happiness had come to seem repellent, it was a selfishness he could not forgive in himself.

As if to punish himself further he flung himself harder into the exercise, snapping his upper body forwards and upwards to complete each inverted sit-up faster than the previous. His legs burned, his knees ached, and his abdomen felt as if it was going to be pulled apart as he flipped forward and back like some berserk piece of machinery being tested for its break limit. The strain on thighs and abdominals reached the breaking point, both threatening to cramp catastrophically forcing him to relieve the taxed musculature. Reaching up with both hands he grab a hold of the bar, pulling with his upper body until he was able to lift his pelvis up to the bar and swing his legs over sat on it. He could almost feel the lactic acid burning in his rectus femoris and vastus lateralis. His stomach was in knots but he was not entirely ready to rule out his feelings of doubt about Samara as partial cause of that. Finding a good center of balance he let go of the bar and lifted his head to stare into the inky indigo of the sky to the north east, looking out at stars and aching to be out among them; where he could do some good, where he could continue to prepare, where he could still be with her.

Pushing himself off the bar he landed on the already slightly damp dirt and grass, the first chill of late evening already forming dew. With little ceremony he fell forward, face first, catching himself with his hands and beginning a battery of pushups. The sole advantage to his incarceration, as he figured it, was the chance to truly take his conditioning to the next level. The strenuous exercise five and sometimes six times a day had a dual purpose; in addition to pushing his conditioning and working out different aspects of his body, it also served to exhaust him completely, meaning that after a quick shower he was able to fall asleep without hours of reflection on the Reaper threat and, just before finally falling asleep, about how much he longed to fold that perfect Asari body in his arms and fall asleep, feeling her heat next to him and her breath on his chest, neck, or shoulder. Her smell, the beat of her heart, her voice, all of it was a comfort. She had the distinction of being the only being that could drive him insane and calm him completely, if that wasn't love, he didn't know what was. It was all consuming, so much so that he actually found himself trying with all his effort to keep himself focused on the ridiculous routine he had set up for himself. If he didn't try to keep the focus and martial discipline, he would have been contented to just lose himself in those memories. He would be turning the page in a book, or reviewing a data slate, or exercising and a sound, a texture, or a smell would bring back the memories of her, he could almost taste her on his tongue when that happened, and he would have to fight back the bliss of synesthesia. He wasn't even keeping track of how many pushups he had done, from the feeling in his arms he knew he was at more than fifty but less than seventy five. At around one hundred his arms would tell him it was time to slow down, by one fifty, they would be threatening to quit. The last eighteen or so would be agonizing and by the time he finally reached two hundred, he would have nothing left to give.

His de facto jailer was a Special Forces Marine who seemed to show him a unique deference and respect that he, as a political "prisoner" would not have normally been able to expect. James Vega was a mystery to Uriah, a man who was at once the most and least serious person he had ever met. In many ways he reminded him of Richard Cole and his motley gang of soldier-mercenaries. Vega positively dripped with the Warrior ethos and Marine discipline, but there was a side to him, hidden under the rough exterior of professionalism that hinted at an artist's soul. Uriah had initially be unsure if he liked or hated Vega, but he had the sneaking suspicion that if their situations had been just a little different that he would have counted the younger officer as a trusted subordinate and friend. He could never be another Garrus, but he felt he would come close to that lofty standing. Shepard routinely found himself contemplating how the loss of Kaiden Alenko on Virmire had never really affected him personally. He felt more sorrow over losing someone under his command than he did at losing Alenko specifically, and he wasn't entirely sure if that made him a horrible human being or not. Perhaps he never found a kindred spirit in Kaiden, perhaps he had found the man stand-offish, regardless the fact that he didn't feel enough guilt caused him to feel guilt. Vega though, it was like looking at Grunt and Garrus and Cole, and maybe just a little bit of himself as if gazing into a mirror that could roll the clock back 6 years. And, perhaps, he was feeling a bit the way Anderson had almost a decade ago when he had become a mentor to Uriah, so then, now, could Shepard mentor to this younger officer who clearly had greater things in store. Still, was the fact that he was leading the security platoon a mark of favor, or did this amount to a shit-detail for Vega? He resolved to ask him one day, probably around the same time he asked him if he could go put in some range time, certain that he would ascent to either one or the other.

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><p>At times, the weight of responsibility felt like more of a curse than the glass ceiling associated with her surname. Alliance Command had seemed perfectly happy to place the credit for the "success" at stopping the Collectors on Horizon at her feet, despite her report indicating that it was Shepard that had managed to stop the abductions then fight off the attacking forces. They had given her a battle promotion to Lieutenant, skipping the formality of having her deal with Ensign and Lieutenant Junior Grade, she had broken the William's curse and there was a feeling of adulation and relief even as she knew it was all a lie. The point now was to prove it was the right decision, to prove that her promotion to officer was a judicious course of action and that her devotion to duty justified the rank. Then, two weeks ago Anderson had showed up in the repurposed Cerberus SR-2 and said he wanted her on his crew. This had necessitated the brevet promotion to Lieutenant Commander and her taking up the post of operations officer. As part of her chain of command she was the superior officer of Lieutenant James Vega, who had been tasked with security and integrity surrounding one Uriah J. Shepard.<p>

This was torture, duty wasn't supposed to contain this much conflict of interest. There was an understanding that sometimes you would dislike an assignment, sometimes you might even hate one, but none of that compared to this. Even she hadn't been so concerned that Alliance Command would think they had made a mistake in her promotion she would have requested transfer to another duty posting; having to be this near him was, maddening. Vega was a dutiful officer, he made sure that everything involving his charge was documented from what he read, what he ate, to how regularly he exercised and for how long. Thirty two minutes ago, she had received an e-mail indicating that Shepard would be in the exercise yard. As she stood now, in the darkened conference room overlooking the yard she could see him pushing himself in the fifty by fifty meter quad in a way she had not been privy to during their posting to the SR-1. She had always sort of assumed that his martial ability had been linked to some super natural ability, the idea that he worked so hard to maintain his edge served to dispel the illusion and she found herself wondering if that made her respect him even more.

"Lieutenant Commander...?"

Ashley spun to see Admiral Anderson standing in the door, she hadn't even heard it open. Situational awareness, one of the fundamental precepts of the Marine, and she had just sort of let it go. Shepard would have had some rather choice words about that, ironic that he was the one that had been distracting her in the first place.

"Sir!" She saluted.

"At ease, LC. Checking up on the Commander?" His voice didn't betray any amusement, in fact he seemed more than a bit irritated, but there was no indication about what or whom.

"I'm not sure what to make of it, sir. It was my understanding that working with Cerberus constituted treason, not sure why he's not in the brig, seems like an awful lot of effort for something this cut and dry." She was letting protocol mask her personal feelings, more than a little concerned that if she didn't maintain the appearance of cold detachment they would view her as unfit.

"You honestly believe that?"

"Believe what, sir?"

"That he's guilty of treason. I figured you more than anyone would know better than to believe that." Anderson almost sounded bitter.

"It's not my position to determine, sir. Alliance Command determined that he was guilty of something, it's not my job to decide whether he did anything wrong or not, just to ensure that his security is upheld as Vega's immediate superior."

"Cut the bullshit, Williams. I'm not part of the brass, you don't have to hand me the party line."

"Sorry sir, I just..." She sighed, "I don't know what to believe. The Shepard I thought I knew would never join Cerberus."

"He didn't join, he was conscripted." Anderson insisted, voice uncharacteristically calm given his dynamic personality.

"Then what about Bahak, sir? I don't like Batarians much myself, but three hundred thousand, dead? I can't imagine it, how he could be capable of something like that." She shook her head, watching as he transitioned from the last few labored pushups into a series of stretching exercises to cool down.

"As opposed to what? Letting the Reapers through, letting them access to a mass relay and the whole galaxy? Shepard made the tough call. He tried to get a hold of the Batarians to warn them, but communications were cut off."

"Sir, how can we even be sure that there are actually more Reapers?" She had to admit she was beginning to feel doubts, it just didn't make sense, regardless of what Sovereign had said to Shepard on Virmire and what they had seen on Ilos.

"There are certain things you're not privy too yet. Shepard did the due diligence, he has found out a lot about these monsters. They're as real as you or I, and they are most definitely coming. You saw what the collectors did first hand, I'm not sure it's possible to harbor doubts after that."

"I'm still not willing to discount the idea that Cerberus had tipped off the Collectors about our colonies. It fits with their M O, sir."

Anderson made a frustrated sound, "Lieutenant Commander, you're going to have to start looking at the big picture here. Right now Shepard is the only being alive that has a proven track record against these things, whatever they are and where ever they come from. At some point or another he's either going to be proven right or he's going to wind up in a loony bin, the stockade, or worse. Until one or the other time comes, he's our responsibility by extension."

"Sorry sir, I just have...unresolved feelings concerning Shepard. I'll do my best to put them aside in the interest of professionalism, sir."

Anderson shook his head, a rueful grin on his face. "He's always had that affect."

"Sir?"

"I've known Shepard since he completed N three, that was, oh, about eleven years ago now, was the most promising candidate the N program ever had. The fact he was sitting on a commission just helped compound the issue. Most N series soldiers are enlisted or Mustangs, very rare we get someone his age or without coming up from enlisted do so well." He chuckled, "Usually takes at least six years of service before they have the pedigree necessary to manage all the special forces training. Shepard went from one training school to the next to the next, no time to recover, no time to prepare himself. He just did it all on raw ability and willpower. He'd actually be a high category biotic if he hadn't taught himself to suppress the tendencies when he was fourteen."

Ashley was almost dreading the story, it would be more to adore about him, something she was trying very hard to cure herself of. She couldn't help but see the man she had come to admire and feel more than a passing sense of affection for no matter how hard she tried to paint her image of him with traitorous disdain.

"He looks a lot more now like he did when I first met him...well except for that drawn look in his face, and he's definitely in a lot better shape now." Anderson continued, "He was still a little softer back then, just as strong, but a bit more body fat, he almost looks a little unhealthy now."

Ashley found the idea preposterous, she looked out the window at the shirtless form, legs spread apart and his body doubled over, flat against the top of the right leg, in a deep stretch. he looked like a sculpture of a Greek god now, how could that possibly be less healthy looking, she couldn't help but let something of a bitter laugh out as she spoke. "Sir, there is absolutely nothing about him that looks remotely unhealthy."

"Sure there is...an operator like Shepard needs at least three percent more body fat. If you're going to be out in the field for extended periods, you have to have a bit or a reserve to work on. He's got nothing left to burn but muscle and adrenalin."

She shrugged, "Anyway, you were saying sir?"

"Yeah, he was all of twenty one when we met and he had been training non-stop from the age of eighteen. He was young, fit, full of confidence, but not cocky. He knew his ability, knew how good a soldier he was. Never had to pretend, he could let his actions do the talking just fine. But, so much younger, a regular junior officer pretty boy. He didn't have the worry lines like he does now or the scars he got during the Blitz back then. He was almost too pretty to be a Marine, had to beat the girls off with a stick." Anderson chuckled, but his voice changed as he continued, growing somehow more dour. "Until Elysium anyway...when he met Enna."

"Enna, sir?"

"His first wife...they got divorced six years ago now, but honestly I don't think it ever approached what you would call a real marriage. He was gone all the time, training or deployments, training or deployments. I think the idea was just to have someone or something at home to return too. It was a lot like the relationship his mom and dad had, but they, at least, had a functional relationship otherwise. I talked to his old man right down one of those hallways, ten years ago, before he died over Elysium." He sighed, his voice slipping further into a dark melancholy that only an officer who had seen as much as he had could truly understand, "Sad, sad story. Last time Shepard ever talked to his dad, he didn't even realize it was him on the other end. Was feeding him close air support strike coordinates. He died three and a half minutes after leaving the atmosphere on the RTB run to refuel and rearm and he never knew."

Ashley was almost reeling from the revelation, finally coming to grips with how little she really knew Shepard. He had never mentioned a previous marriage, his parents, what the fighting on Elysium had been like. Never discussed his career with the Systems Alliance military, it had all been a convenient mystery that no one thought to question because his skill level didn't necessitate questioning.

"Sir, with all due respect, is this going somewhere?"

"Everything in that boy's life has been about service and doing the best he could. Everything he compiled for us, all the footage, all the reports, even turning over the SR-2 to the Alliance, have been all about his sense of duty. Now, it's not my place to give you an order in this regard but maybe you can cut the man some slack."

Ashley nodded for a moment, most of the information seemed believable, it actually served to contextualize him even more, but the revelation about a previous marriage still seemed completely strange and out of character. "Still, not sure if I can grasp the idea of him ever being married."

"I think everyone who knew him felt more or less the same way. Hell, I wasn't even sure he was into females until we found out he was in hiding with an Asari on Illium."

Ashley felt a twinge of jealousy with shades of betrayal, her suspicions demanded some sort of confirmation so she asked in spite of her better judgment, "Liara T'Soni?" Even if it was that didn't necessarily meant there was anything going on between the two romantically, but based on Anderson's comments it seemed to indicate that there was something beyond professional relationship involved.

"No, she was much older, more mature, a matriarch I think. Leave it to him to catch the eye of an Asari that's older than the modern human history." He chuckled to himself again as he watched Shepard continued stretching. "You know, if he keeps up this kind of training regimen, he might be able to take out a few Reapers bare handed."

Williams narrowed her eyes, looking at Admiral Anderson with a mixture of concern and inquisitiveness; she wasn't sure if he was joking or not or if the "Shepard effect", that caused those around him to believe he had a field of infallibility, had taken hold. Despite her best efforts she found the only cure for the reverence she had developed for him was not to be around him. Of course revelations about his love life with other species also helped facilitate an immediate cooling of feelings towards him. Not so much out of any feelings of overt racism or xenophobia, but rather as twinges of ire over the fact that he seemed dead set on wasting his genes in a species where it didn't matter.

Still, if half of what Anderson had said was true, he did deserve the benefit of a doubt when it came to the last few rather unorthodox months of his life. Maybe if she could get access to a little more of what was none about his alleged death and activities prior to and following the events on Horizon, her confidence could be restored that he was the commander she had respected and adored.

"Carry on, LC." Anderson intoned as he crossed to and exited the door, leaving Ashley still staring out at the dimly illuminated PT yard.

"Aye aye, sir."


End file.
